OAKLAND COUNTY — The Michigan State University Extension is sponsoring a workshop for Oakland County lakefront property owners to create, restore and manage natural shorelines at the Cranbrook Institute of Science 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. March 8.

“This is an educational program to help homeowners that live along lakes … to understand the importance of a natural shoreline,” said Bindu Bhakta, extension educator with the MSU Extension.

Look up as you walk the halls at Simonds Elementary, and you’ll wonder how you wandered into a butterfly enclosure.

More than 300 handcrafted butterflies are suspended from the ceiling. Their bodies are wood clothespins spray-painted black, with pipe-cleaner antennae and paper wings dotted with sequins. Each butterfly is one-of-a-kind, reflecting the student who made it, and every kid at the school contributed to the collection.

As a boy, he didn’t know his father was a convicted child killer, on the run with his mother who helped his father escape from Indiana State Prison in the ‘70s. But all through his childhood, Chip St. Clair says he experienced the cruelty of the man he knew as David St. Clair, whose real name was Michael Dean Grant.

DETROIT — On Eight Mile near Klinger, east of Dequindre, is a gas station and party store, or what remains of it, anyway. The pumps are gone, and no signage remains to give the place a name.

The terrain is cratered, and rainwater pools in the middle, dark and murky. Grocery bags and fast-food wrappers are entangled in the cyclone fencing, while bricks, shards of glass and huge chunks of Styrofoam litter the ground. Weed-choked fields grow unchecked out back, all but obscuring a discarded luggage trunk.

MADISON HEIGHTS — Whether it’s an animal shelter or a thrift store for the poor, many nonprofits practically run on air. With finances tight, it’s hard to hire staff that can take care of the day-to-day tasks that come with running an organization. And when they get bogged down in menial work, they become distracted from their mission.

MADISON HEIGHTS — To the human eye, a QR code is indecipherable, a checkered mass of black-and-white squares. Scan it with a smartphone, though, and what looks like senseless TV static becomes a link to a website — no typing necessary.

Originally used in the auto industry to track vehicles during the manufacturing process, “quick reference” codes are growing in popularity thanks to the rise of smartphones, which effectively double as barcode readers.

HAZEL PARK — Before they can start initiatives like turning vacant buildings into art studios, empty lots into sculpture gardens and bare walls into murals, Hazel Park’s ambitious Arts Council needs to raise enough funds to secure 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, the key to securing grants and other connections crucial to its success.

HAZEL PARK — When her husband lost his job a year ago, Rose Elaine Clay had to find a way to help her family make ends meet.

But the 46-year-old Hazel Park resident, known to locals by her childhood nickname “LaLa,” didn’t want to simply scrape by doing work she didn’t enjoy.

So when the opportunity presented itself, LaLa leveraged the support of her family and turned hard work, natural talent and a metric ton of passion for baking into a brand-new business: LaLa Cookies & Cakes.

MADISON HEIGHTS — Life was just beginning for Jenny when it was taken away.

The Oak Park resident was 22, married two months to the man who’d been her friend since she was 13. So young and so in love — but cancer, ever horrible, didn’t care.

Such is the tragedy that befell Jenny — full name Jennifer Amber Robacker-Bazinet — when her stage 4 colon cancer ended in death. Born Nov. 15, 1987, she passed Oct. 30, 2010, a life all too short, but one that touched the hearts of those around her.

Over the past few months, volunteers from all sectors of the city — church, civic, government, school and nonprofit — have been building a database-driven coalition of services to meet the needs of Hazel Park and its residents.

It’s still growing, but the hope is it will become a reliable safety net for residents.

MADISON HEIGHTS/HAZEL PARK — The Madison Heights/Hazel Park Chamber of Commerce has a new person in charge — and with it an injection of young blood.

At 21 years old, Shelby Township resident Alan Horn has been hired for the full-time position of executive director, responsible for bringing together local businesses under the chamber banner, and in doing so, helping them all with professional networking, educational opportunities, member-to-member discounts and more.

MADISON HEIGHTS — Far away in East Africa, on the shores of the Indian Ocean, is the nation of Tanzania, wherein lies the district of Mbulu.

Here the landscape is harsh, the hardships many. Located just south of the equator, Tanzania alternates between a dry season with periodic droughts and food shortages, and a rainy season in which deforestation causes flooding.